RECOLLECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS
gratitude for a scholarship I received from the Grocers* Company after I had been some time at Trinity ; it was of great service to me. Many years later they made me an Honorary Member of their Company—an honour which I value very highly.
Several of my contemporaries at Owens attained distinction in after-life. One of them, who was also my contemporary at Cambridge, became Archbishop of Perth in Western Australia. Six of them became Professors at either Oxford or Cambridge, one of them became Whip for the Liberal party, another President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Perhaps the most widely known was G. R. Gissing, the novelist; his novels are largely autobiographies, and the experience of the characters in his books when at College are his own experiences at Owens. For example, in Born in Exile, Whiteway College is Owens and one of its Professors is Adolphus Ward, who was Professor of English Literature and History in Gissing's time. Ward at once recognised Gissing's ability. I can remember at one of the annual meetings which were held at the end of each session, Ward, when announcing that Gissing had gained the prize for the English poem, said he had written a very rare thing, a prize poem that was real poetry. Ward took a great interest in Gissing, and was a good friend to him when he badly needed one. I did not know Gissing intimately, as we were not in the same year and did not meet at lectures, which were the usual places for meeting one's friends. As I remember him, he was pale, thin, listless, and looked and lived as if his means were small. After he left the College he lived by literature, but for many years he had a terrible struggle, hardly earning enough to keep body and soul together, and thinking when he could afford 32